Introduction
The evidence for life after death is extensive and persuasive. We need to know what happens following our death to be prepared for the coming life. We can use this information to guide our own behaviors and possibly to discuss the issues with those who have preceded us in death.
After discussing my personal experiences, the presentation includes a summary of what happens when we die and a discussion of the most persuasive information that has been found over the last 130 years. Later presentations will involve a more in-depth discussion of each of these topics.
And She Came Back
See the attached document for this section.
What Happens When We Die
By way of introducing the whole topic and its importance consider what we think we know about what happens when you die. This summary is based on a synthesis of the best available literature.
Death is a doorway that we walk through at the time of our death. Initially, everything on the other side is the same as it is here. There are many instances of people who have died and they do not know they are dead. Soldiers continue in battle and find that they cannot interact with the real world. They have to be told by other discarnate (non-living) entities that they are dead and can stop fighting. Some people who died tell us that they continue to talk, touch, and in other ways interact with others who are alive. They begin to realize they are dead when their hand and other body parts move through physical objects such as living people and walls among other physical objects. The dead person finds that they can levitate and are no longer bound by gravity. Some people come to the realization that they are no longer alive when they see their bodies lying dead. It is a surprise to learn that the living does not know they are present.
Consider what this means. The person’s body looks the same to themselves. Their emotions, thoughts, and cognition have not been altered in their own perception of these things. Apparently, when they look at themselves they do not appear any different. They have the same body and clothing they had prior to their death. It is often remarked that they perceive a body double: One person alive the other dead. In this sense, it is said throughout the literature that death is nothing but a doorway and it is no different from moving from one room to another in your house.
Some people are greeted by other discarnate entities before they die. Others do not meet the discarnate until later. It would appear that the majority of people are met within a few minutes (if not sooner) following their death. The newly deceased is met by relatives and other people with whom they had a close relationship. These are people who have preceded them in death and are present to ease the newly deceased into the afterlife with love and compassion. Following this warm and emotional welcome, it would appear that the newly deceased is ushered to some sort of idyllic surrounding that suits their prior lifestyle.
Soon after arrival, there is a life review that may be something similar to watching a DVD in real-time. This is an experience in which the person can go backward or forward in their prior life. They experience their life from their own perspective and from the perspective of the other people in their life. We review the good and the bad including the ramifications. That is, we see how our behaviors affected others in terms of the joy and the pain we caused.
Based on past research it would appear that some people engage in what we call reincarnation. This reincarnation appears to happen anywhere from a few days to over fifty years following death. We know that something like reincarnation is a fact of life. However, we do not understand what happens. It may be that each of us is part of a larger, more encompassing, over-soul and that some part of that over-soul is what returns to life with some of our prior memories. Each of us is part of something bigger than ourselves. We are here to gain experience, to learn to live together, and we are our brother’s keeper.
In the next sections, we will consider the strongest evidence in order of importance. This includes Deathbed Visions, Shared Deathbed Visions, and Reincarnation. The presentation concludes with Self Exploration: A discussion of techniques that you can use to personally learn about life after death.